Goooood morning!

Art Nouveau Cast Iron Frame - Daydreaming Woman

It's 10:45am, and I'm just starting to feel awake. All my life, I have forced myself to be an early-riser, and now as an adult, I'm finding that that may not actually be who I am. I've just started watching this eBay shop for what they're selling, and have been enjoying looking over the art that they sell. I need to get a bunch of things together to ship this morning, and then I'm going to do some thrifting, see my Salvation Army pals.

I left pancake batter out for a couple days after I didn't use it all. After one day, it made good pancakes. After two days (i.e. just now, this morning), it was disgusting. Lesson learned. I may eat a lot of pancakes for a normal person who does not live in a diner. I'm okay with that. I decided a long time ago that if I want to eat pancakes, I will make them whole wheat/buckwheat, and I won't feel guilty. I will feel awesome for taking care of myself so well.

Someone confronted me about reselling over the weekend, and I responded without ire (very proud of myself for this). "Is that even legitimate?" "Yup", I responded, "without question". This is, at its essence, what all wholesalers do. Office Depot does not make all of its products. Junk warehouses make money from people digging through their wares. This is part of the economy. If you pay attention, it's happening all around you. Farmers sell their produce through stores. I'm all about buying direct, giving business to the little guy, and I'd like to remain in that role. I'd like to be the little guy who collects cool stuff to offer to people who happen to be looking for it, but don't have the time and energy to thrift constantly. I'd like to offer a service to people who love the hunt, but want to hunt on a larger scale (not everyone has thrift stores on every corner). Anyhoo, I was reinvigorated for my task at hand, and will enjoy the hunt that much more today (when I get off my butt and get down to it, of course).

I attend an amazing church that talks about refugees, and yesterday we talked about the Old Testament, the book of Jeremiah, and the realities of war refugees then and now. Please take a moment to read the most recent news about Syria, and consider making a donation to MCC, currently providing direct aid to Syrian refugees.

Joseph Brodsky.

Grow accustomed to the desert as to fate/lest you find it omnipresent much too late.

~Joseph Brodsky 

Someone sent me these poems a few years back, and the second half of the audio has two of my favorite poems by Joseph Brodsky, a Russian poet. There is something so beautiful about the idea that there are other people who exist in the world who understand the depth of being (as much as it can be understood, of course) and who are able to put pen to paper and make something of it, or maybe they create meaning with the writing itself. I dunno. Anyhow, listen if you like. The reader has a beautiful voice and cadence.

I am not an alien.

 

When I was seven or eight (or nine?), at Sunday School, we were asked to draw what our life would look like when we were 26. I wrote that I would be a professional ballerina. That was what I wanted to be; I worked like a maniac to be that person, and it didn't work out. My body didn't have what I needed to go as far with dancing as I wanted to go. Then the same thing happened with swimming. My body didn't have what it took.

So now my life is different that I thought it would be. The faces are different from the old faces. The people who were in my life at ages seven, eight, and nine, are no longer in my everyday life. Not a one. And that is strange. I don't have all the markers people commonly have that remind them who they were, and how they became who they are. That disconnect is jarring sometimes. It's normal for a person in my situation, but it's still jarring.

I talk about this stuff a lot, because it's central to my everyday functioning. Sometimes I have to remind myself daily that I'm still real, that I'm a person. I am not an alien. I am not invisible.